Highlights of the trip: the largest rape field in China, colorful Danxia in Zhangye, the largest indoor Millennium reclining Buddha, the horseshoe temple of Tibetan Buddhism, and the green leather night train experience.

Special food: Lanzhou Zhengning Road Night Market, stewed sheep's head, beef noodles, hand-grabbed sheep.

Lanzhou is chosen as the starting point for this trip. There is a night train to Zhangye in Lanzhou, which can reach Zhangye on Saturday morning. In summer in northwest China, the sunshine is long and the sun sets later, so we can make full use of the whole day on Saturday.

I will fly to Lanzhou on Friday and arrive at Lanzhou airport at 6 o'clock in the afternoon. There is a city rail leading to the urban area in the arrival hall of Lanzhou Airport, and tickets can be purchased in advance on the railway website. Please remember that the name of the station is Nakagawa Airport. You can't search by other names.

The train from Lanzhou to Zhangye leaves at 1 pm, which means I have a complete dinner time. After arriving at Lanzhou Station, I took a taxi and went straight to Zhengning Road Night Market.

Eating at Zhengning Road Night Market is a reserved program for Lanzhou. This is the oldest night market in Lanzhou, where stewed sheep's head, mutton offal soup and kebabs smell delicious.

Braised sheep's head brings together all the essence of a sheep, as well as all the tastes of eating a sheep: tender, soft, smooth, crisp and juicy.

There are rules for eating sheep's head: the first step is to eat the sheep's eyes that burst into juice first. Sheep's eyes are the most delicious part of sheep's head. Gently pull out the sheep's eyes and put them directly into the mouth. The smooth sheep's eye muscles and the mutton soup in the eyes are generate in the mouth, which is rich in taste and very delicious. The second step is to break the sheep skull by hand, and the pink and soft sheep brain flowers appear in front of you. Dip the brain flower in the bright red material, send it to your mouth, and enjoy the feeling that the brain flower trembles slightly in your mouth. There is also a sheep face where the sheep head can be eaten. Sheep are thick-skinned, rich in collagen, and tender and soft. Finally, eat sheep's ears and sheep's ladder, which is very crisp. Unfortunately, due to folk customs, some stalls do not sell beer.

After eating well, I went back to Lanzhou Station, just in time for the K9661 ordinary express from Lanzhou to Zhangye. Of all the modes of travel and transportation, I think the green leather night train in the west is the most interesting. I remember that in the past, a train bound for the west could take a week, which was very travel-like.

in the night market, I packed two roast fat sheep loins and five strings of oversized roast mutton. Take two cans of Yellow River beer with you in the small supermarket at the station, which is enough to comfort the dusty night with the clatter of the train.

The train arrived in Zhangye at 4: 45 in the morning. I reserved a car in advance and asked the driver to take it to the railway station. Drive all the way south from Zhangye Railway Station and arrive at Biandukou at sunrise. The rape blossoms are in bloom.

after crossing the Biandukou, we entered Qinghai from Gansu. In front of us is the Qilian Mountain. Qilian Mountain Peak is 4,-6, meters above sea level, stretching for nearly 1, kilometers from east to west. The vertical difference of Qilian landscape is dizzying. From the snow-capped peaks to the green basins and valleys, the scenery and climate fluctuate with the altitude, and there can be four seasons in one day.

Qilian grassland was selected as one of the six most beautiful grasslands in China. July is the best time of the year when flowers bloom on the Qilian grassland and the mountains are blooming. Looking around, the sky is grey, the fields are vast, and cattle and sheep are everywhere. Herdsmen here like to spray different colors on sheep as a distinction. Sheep of different colors graze on the green grassland, which is like an impressionist work.

come to menyuan at ten o'clock in the morning. Menyuan is backed by Qilian Mountain, and under the continuous snow-capped mountains, there is the largest rape field in the world. Mid-July is the time when Menyuan rapeseed blooms. On the vast land, there are patches of yellow-green and yellow rapeseed flowers and green wheat fields. Face the sea of flowers and smile.

during the flower season, local people will set aside some areas as scenic spots to collect tickets, and the price is higher. The advantage of self-driving compared with tourist bus is that the self-driving vehicle itself is a mobile viewing platform, which is unrestrained, free and convenient. The world is very big, and the rape blossoms are brilliant.

The return trip starts at 1: 3 pm, because there is another important node in the afternoon: Colorful Danxia in Zhangye. Qilian Mountain blocked the warm and humid ocean monsoon, which made the Hexi Corridor a region crisscrossed by oases and deserts. Gobi, desert, Danxia and Yadan are typical landforms here.

One month after the summer solstice is the latest time when the sun sets in Zhangye. Check before going out, the sunset time of the day is 2: 4. The sunset in the northwest is late, which is good news for travelers. One day's trip can play two wonderful days: from Zhangye to Menyuan, and then from Menyuan to colorful Danxia.

The time to arrive at Colorful Danxia in Zhangye is 6 pm. It rained heavily in Zhangye early this morning, and it was clear in Wan Li in the afternoon, which has two important conditions for Zhangye Danxia to shine. You know, in a year, there are only a handful of days when rain meets sunny days. Thank God for the food.

The splendor of colorful Danxia begins at dusk. At this time, the sun is not as enthusiastic as noon, and the color temperature becomes warm. The weather has faded away from sultry and cool air in Xu Lai. To tell the truth, if it comes too early, the strong sunshine will turn Danxia white, which will not look good.

Colorful Danxia has five observation platforms, each with its own characteristics, and it's hard to say which is better. Just follow the route of sightseeing bus, from one observation deck to another, and it's good to travel forward, so there's no need to struggle.

to be honest, the colorful Danxia after the rain is really beautiful in the sunset. Stay near colorful Danxia at night. Dinner is Zhang Ye's hand-grabbed sheep and beef noodles. It is an irrefutable truth that beef, mutton and pasta taste better as you go west.

The next morning, I went to Danxia, an ice ditch near Qicai Danxia, to prepare to shoot the sunrise. As a result, the scenic spot didn't open until eight o'clock, and I missed it. It turns out that if you want to shoot the sunrise in Danxia, you need to buy tickets online in advance and make an appointment for the admission time online. It seems that you have to do your homework in more detail before you go out.

Come out of Danxia in the ice ditch and go straight to the Big Buddha Temple in Zhangye City. The Great Buddha Temple in Zhangye, built in Xixia, has the largest indoor reclining Buddha in China. The Great Buddha Hall, the Sutra Hall and the Maitreya Pagoda of the Great Buddha Temple are ancient cultural relics, which have now been turned into museums. The sleeping Buddha, the treasure of the town temple, is located in the Great Buddha Hall, with very fine workmanship. Because it is indoors, the color is quite well preserved, which is a peerless treasure. Compared with the excitement of colorful Danxia, this treasure seems to be left out in the cold, with few tourists, which makes people feel cool. All right, this is a clean place.

On the way to Horseshoe Temple, I made a detour and passed Zhenyuan Building in Zhangye City. Zhenyuan Building is the largest bell and drum tower in Hexi Corridor.

In those days, Zhang Ye was like a giant hand, spreading his arms along the Hexi Corridor and holding the throat in the northwest, which was the origin of the great country's opening up its territory. Standing here, I seem to see the golden horse of that year. In those days, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty cut through the Western Regions and opened the Silk Road on land, which set up a big pattern of connecting China with the world.

Hexi Corridor is the intersection of farming civilization and nomadic civilization in China. Nomads covet the prosperity of the Central Plains and become the fuse of conflict. The two sides clashed constantly, loved each other and killed each other, and finally merged into one, and the nation was United.

Horseshoe Temple is named after the legendary Tianma drinking water here and leaving hoof prints on the stones. This hoof print has become the treasure of the town temple of Horseshoe Temple, which can be visited and worshipped by people. Horseshoe Temple was originally a Buddhist temple in Han Dynasty, and later it gradually became a Tibetan Buddhist temple.

Besides horseshoe prints, the most famous horseshoe temple is the Thirty-three Days Grottoes. These caves are dug in a huge monolithic mountain, and even the connecting stairs are dug inside the mountain. What you see outside is a suspended castle in the air, which is simply wonderful. Humans are really great. They have created miracles that ordinary people can't understand for their beliefs.

Along the Hexi Corridor, besides Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and Tianshui Maijishan Grottoes, there are dozens of Buddhist grottoes besides Horseshoe Temple. These grottoes are large in scale, exquisite in workmanship and devout in faith, which confirms the spreading process of Buddhism along the Silk Road from northwest to southeast, first taking root in the western regions and then blossoming and bearing fruit in the mainland. Ji Xianlin, a master of Chinese studies, commented: "There are only four cultural systems with a long history, vast territory, self-contained system and far-reaching influence in the world: China, India, Greece and Islam, and there is no fifth one; There is only one place where these four cultural systems converge, that is, Hexi Corridor in China and Xinjiang, and there is no second one. "

The return flight takes off at five o'clock in the afternoon, flying from Zhangye to Xi 'an, and transferring from Xi 'an to go home. This is a weekend trip to Wan Li.

# Flying with your heart on weekends # ##

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